Hot air

We have lived long enough, in many different houses and in different parts of our country, such that we can claim to have experienced every possible type of house heating system. We grew up in an era when an open fireplace was commonplace in one or more rooms, this being responsible for providing heat and possibly also for heating bath water. Electricity was often used directly for heating either air or water, but less so if a supply of gas was available, although I suspect those living more remotely had fewer choices. Those with a piped gas connection, often referred to as 'town gas', would have burnt this to heat water which was then moved around the house into things called 'radiators' which warm the air around them in different rooms by a process known as 'convection'. Take away the gas supply and another fuel, oil, is deployed in a very similar way although as far as I am aware nobody yet has ever seriously considered feeding this into houses through pipes laid in the street.

But then suddenly, or so it seems, we are being encouraged to install a totally different form of heating in our homes, one that uses neither gas nor oil nor does it even use electricity for directly producing heat. So where did this come from?

It seems we have to thank a French physicist called Sadi Carnot who in 1824 laid the groundwork for an engine that could transfer heat from a cooler body to a warmer one.* Then in 1852 Lord Kelvin developed the first heat pump which used a compression and expansion cycle to transfer heat from one place to another. None of these ideas were practical, however, for use in homes and it was only in the 1950s that the first heat pump using a refrigerant was developed and much later than this before such machines became commercially available. By the 1980s the world had become more concerned about energy efficiency and we saw the first governmental incentives for homeowners and businesses aimed at installing air source heat pumps. Since then further advances in technology have made them ever more efficient and versatile, able to provide both heating and cooling inside the home as well as hot water, even on a cold day.

Given such a long history one might have thought that everyone today would understand how heat pumps work and be able to see the advantages of installing them in the home. Strangely though this is not so. Quite the reverse, in fact, if social media commentaries are anything to go by. So why is this? How did we get to the position today where there is so much criticism and adverse comment focussed on these machines and so little understanding of how warmth can be taken from a place that is less warm and used to heat something to a much higher temperature?

My purpose here is not to provide an explanation of how a heat pump works - there are plenty of resources available to anyone who needs to know this - nor try to justify why we have fitted one both in our present house and also in the one we recently moved from, replacing in both cases fully functioning oil and gas boilers. What I am puzzled about, however, is why there is so much negativity about them, even amongst those whom one might consider to be very concerned about the impacts that burning fossil fuels has on our planet. Surely something that can produce heat other than by the combustion of gas or oil would be seen by everyone as something to be welcomed, worth installing even if this involves some initial disruption to the home. But apparently not. The most common comment I have seen goes something like,'What if there is a power cut? How can you heat your home then?' But both before and after installing our air source units we had power cuts, quite long ones, and the effect was the same...no heating. No gas or oil boiler will work without an electricity supply.

Perhaps the biggest grumble is over the cost, both of installing and running, which is bizarre when government grants are available for the first and, once properly set up, there is very little difference in running either system. Which brings me to my point; 'properly set up'. Two different companies in two different houses and in both cases once the work was done we were left with a system that worked to a particular set of timings and temperatures. We were also given the impression that we would be ill advised to change anything.

Gripe warning!

Air source systems use a large, well insulated water tank, fitted inside the house, with a thermostat inside. The default setting on both our installs meant that as soon as the water temperature dropped just a degree or two below the pre-set level, day or night, then this triggered the externally fitted air source unit to run in order to bring the temperature back up again. This might only take minutes but it does use electricity and in my view this default setting is often not necessary. In both houses the thermostat was fitted midway down the tank. What this means is that when the thermostat first detects a lower temperature there is still hot water in the top half of the tank; hot water will always rise to the top. For two people living in a house, showering daily and using hot water for washing and much else, our hot water tanks were big enough so that they needed only be heated once a day, a process taking only an hour or so. So would it not make more sense to ask if there is a cheap electricity rate available at any particular time and install a system to take advantage of this? Sadly in our experience this is beyond the remit of most installers. What is more pertinent in our present house is that we have solar panels on a south facing roof which means that around midday, given the right weather, electricity is being generated, for free. So why not make use of this and set the timer so the water is only heated at this time of day? Well we do now but only because we have reset the timers as they should have been set up from the start. I have no idea how much this saves us, nor do I intend to measure this but I can see that without taking into account the different individual circumstances that relate to each particular property and tailoring the timers and other settings accordingly you would be at risk of installing a less efficient (and therefore more costly) system. 

Gripe over.

I do appreciate that for many the idea of extracting heat from the cooler air outside, especially on a chilly day, may be difficult to understand but it does not end there. There are now fully functional home heating systems deployed which extract heat, not from the air, but from a water source. This might be a lake, the sea or even waste water containing sewage. This makes perfect sense since water is denser than air and is therefore less prone to rapid temperature fluctuations.

Time and again we are asked about our air source heating system...'Do you like it? Is it cheaper to run? Does it work when it is frosty outside? Is it noisy?... as well as 'How exactly does it work? My answer to this last one is always, 'It uses magic!'

Crinan with a keel

For the first time since we acquired our lovely little Cornish Shrimper sailing boat she has a proper keel. The boatyard did an excellent job repairing the keel box and putting her back to how she was originally built nearly forty years ago so all we have to do now is to get her home safely. If, along the way, we can see how well she now sails with a lowered keel plate slicing the water beneath her then this would be a bonus but the main objective will be to get her home, of course. If we can combine this with a short holiday, cooking our own meals made from the vittles we carry on board then sleeping peacefully tucked up inside our cosy Duvalay sleeping bags, then this would be nice too. But let us not forget the main objective.

The boatyard at Ardfern lies at the end of Loch Craignish which opens out to the south west onto the Sound of Jura. The loch is not, however, one of our favourite places to sail as it is quite narrow and is surrounded by hills of various sizes which makes the wind rather unpredictable in both strength and direction. There are also some rocky obstacles to avoid but then anyone who sails on the west coast of Scotland will be quite used to these. We slept the night on board, berthed in the boatyard, so as to make an early start the next day but there was still a list of boaty things to do before we could leave the busy and rather noisy boatyard. Next to us a very large yacht was having it's two masts stepped and the crane was making bleeping noises, these being essential to any craning operation, but despite this we managed to get ourselves ready and cast off around nine in the morning. Once outside the confines of the marina there was a nice breeze blowing although we knew better than to expect that it would be plain sailing to reach the entrance to the Crinan Canal. Almost as soon as we'd got the sails up the wind changed direction, twice, then faded for a while. What we hadn't expected was the fierce gust that followed which briefly tipped our pretty little boat right over on her side. But we reasoned that the main cause for this was the newly fixed keel plate gripping the water so we just accepted this and sailed on although the hills around the loch kept on delivering gusts and lulls, right until we finally escaped into more open water.

The entrance to the Crinan canal was now in sight and we drifted gently towards this, finally starting the engine to bring us inside the deep sea lock. All that remained was to toss our mooring lines up to the waiting hands of the lock staff, a task that was to become more and more difficult as we proceeded through the canal and our flinging arms weakened. A voice from above then explained that another boat was on its way in and since they would be sharing the lock with us we must wait for them to arrive. So we got out the sandwiches and made ourselves comfortable.

Before long we could hear the deep rumbling sound of a large engine which signified the approaching vessel, a large and very wide motor yacht, which would be squeezing into the lock alongside us. Seeing this manoeuvering towards us into the tight space was rather like standing in front of a tank, but thankfully the skipper judged it correctly and we escaped damage. Soon the lock gates were closing and we knew the fun was about to start. 

As soon as the outer lock gates closed the sluices were opened at the other end to fill the lock basin and bring the water level up to that of the canal inside so that we could move forward. There is no easy way to do this. Many tons of water have to be moved about and any small boat in the lock is inevitably going to be bounced around. It is like being in a giant washing machine and it requires considerable strength to hold onto the ropes tying us to the side. It seemed to go on forever but gradually, as we were lifted up, the pressure eased and soon our heads popped up above the rim where a rather surprised young dog was waiting for us, a little frightened by the sight of us emerging from below. Once the lock was full the inner gates were opened allowing us to escape into the calm of the basin beyond. Many more locks awaited us (there are fifteen in all) but hopefully not all squashed in with a 56 foot long motor cruiser towering over us.

Passage through the canal can, with a lot of hard work, be done in one day, but we are allowed four nights to make the passage so why not take advantage of this and stop off at a quiet mooring or two along the way. There are seven bridges in all to navigate past but the canal staff will call ahead to warn the bridge keeper so these barely hold us up at all. For the first night we tied up to a pontoon next to a bird hide, a place from which to look out across the River Add and watch the ducks and other wildlife. Suddenly we both felt very relaxed and chose to tuck ourselves into bed early, which meant before the sun had fully set, although given that this was late June there is very little darkness anyway. In the morning we strolled off to the nearby toilet and shower facilities then fired up the outboard engine for action. Once past Bellanoch Bridge we came to the first flight of locks, each of which took us a little higher, until we finally reached the summit, the highest part of the canal, where again we tied up and stopped for the night. By this time, however, our throwing arms were completely worn out. Tossing a coil of rope up to the waiting lock keeper might sound easy but if you miss and the rope drops down into the water, you are then faced with trying again with a wet rope, considerably heavier and rather unpleasant to handle. Whilst doing this the boat will drift away from the side of the lock meaning the next throw is even longer, requiring ever more muscle power. Suffice to say that we need to practice more, or else find an easier solution to this problem. Fortunately having arrived at the highest point in the canal, in all the subsequent locks we were going down, a much easier process with no rope throwing involved at all.

The canal passes through a green, wooded landscape with trees draping the surrounding hills and vegetation leaning out over the water as we pass by. The water comes from lochs in the hills higher up, some of which were created specifically to service the canal when it was opened in 1801. At dryer times of year there may be barely enough water in them to keep the canal open and for our passage we were asked to share each lock with other vessels to make best use of the precious water. But we were not rushing to get through so a short wait for another boat to catch up did not bother us at all. The weather treated us quite well too, often just enough breeze to keep the midges away (these little beasts can be a problem) and cool enough to keep us comfortable.

Normally we might expect to be managing most of the locks ourselves but the shortage of water meant that each lock was managed for us by the friendly keepers who must experience far worse rope throwing than ours. As we proceeded, however, we were watching the weather forecast closely since once we emerged from the canal we would become a sailing boat again and would need a fair wind to take us home. This proved difficult, in the end, due to the unreliability of forecasting but after sharing the final locks with two other (larger) sailing boats we finally popped out of the canal at Ardrishaig and sailed away home.

So has the lower keel plate made a difference to how the boat sails?

Well there is no scientific evidence to prove this since sailing is mostly about how the boat 'feels' but when the wind was kind to us, blowing steadily from one direction, we did seem to make good progress upwind - 'pointing higher than before' would be the technical term. Our track, once we had emerged from the canal at Ardrishaig, can be seen here and the from 'tacking angle' (another technical term) it does seem that the lowered keel plate is making a difference. If only the wind was as reliable though. Sadly our journey home was plagued by an ever more variable wind and the dull day did little to raise our spirits. Eventually there was little choice but to start the engine before we ran out of daylight altogether.

The past catches up

Many, many years ago, back in those pre-family days, my life hinged around climbing and mountaineering, the higher and steeper the better. My work had taken me to live in the city of Liverpool and I would spend most weekends roaming the hills of Wales or else some of the rather bigger ones in Scotland. Glencoe was always a favourite of mine, a place where whichever way you turn the mountains rise up steeply and shout 'climb me!' Ropes, carabiners and slings were the tools of my trade, so to speak, together with the language that went with them. Phrases like 'on belay', ' a bit thin', 'hand jam', came as second nature to me and there were even occasions when I might have got a bit 'gripped' myself if the 'exposure' became too much.

Eventually life moved on for me and I took up other adventurous pastimes, still enjoying the mountains but less keen on the steeper craggy bits. Then, completely out of the blue around forty years later, I was contacted by someone I used to climb with all those years ago! My thoughts go back straight away to a climb he and I did together on the north face of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland. Hundreds of tourists must climb this peak each year; there is a well worn track that rises up from the glen which suffers from human traffic jams if the weather is right. But that is one of the big issues - the weather. You might start the long climb in scorching sunshine but the weather four thousand feet higher will never be the same. It will be significantly colder, to start with, windier and there's a good chance that the summit will be in cloud with moisture pouring out of it. I am, of course, referring here to the summer, which is important, because when we climbed the north face it was in winter.

Ben Nevis is essentially a long rocky ridge, enabling a relatively easy route to be established from one end. As you approach the summit, however, you will become aware that there is a steep cliff to one side, the north face, which it pays to stay well clear of. In winter the summit will always have snow on it and the north face, which never sees the sun, will have gullies full of vertical ice sheets and an overhanging cornice of frozen snow at the top.

 

Tower Ridge in Summer

Tower Ridge splits the north face, starting in the corrie below and rising like a jagged-edged dagger all the way to the top. Even in Winter the lower part, which is very steep, can be almost clear of snow and ice but as you get higher, this is what you must negotiate. Crampons are strapped onto the boots so that the spikes grip the ice and each foothold needs to be tested before applying too much weight in case the ice should break. At the top, where the ridge meets the summit, the snow can be treacherous and with summit cloud this will mean that after reaching the top the difficulties are not over yet. Finding a route down, in deep snow and with poor visibility, means using a compass and following guidebook instructions since even the large cairns marking the footpath can be hard to find.

All these recollections were triggered by a single message but I then discover that this friend from the past, Tony, is still a keen mountaineer and will soon be in Scotland for a walking holiday. So we arrange to meet up. Will I still recognise this person who I have not seen for so long?

It was at this point that I remembered the box of  photographic slides that had been stored away for so long, moving with us from house to house over the years but never seeing the light of day. To view these one needs a slide projector, something we no longer possess, but thankfully there are now other ways by which the images can be captured in a modern digital form. Perhaps I might use these photos to jog my memory of climbing friends from the past, although possibly at the risk of scaring my modern self when I look back over some of the crazy things I used to do. As it turned out I did have some pictures of my friend Tony from long ago.

And in the end it was a real delight to meet up with him after all these years, together with his wife Pauline. We simply could not stop talking about our different lives, where we had lived and worked, the varied experiences that had brought us to where we are today and we were delighted to discover we shared so much in common (well maybe not the sailing). Our shared meal together was simply not time enough - we could have gone on forever - but another meet up will inevitably follow at some point.